Notts County forward Garry Thompson was full of praise for new Manager Ricardo Moniz when speaking to the media on Thursday.
Moniz met his players for the first time on Wednesday and Thompson was impressed by how much the new Manager was able to get across to the squad in just one training session.
“He’s come in, he’s got his philosophies about how he wants us to play and the lads are getting on board,” enthused Thompson. “Obviously it’s hard to take it on one training session, but he’s very passionate and he knows how he wants to play football.
“The training session was intense and it was good to listen to someone who’s got new values and how he wants us to play as a team.
“He seems to know football inside out and that can only be a good thing,” he added. “Obviously, like I say, it’s hard to judge on one training session, but the passion and the commitment that he showed and his enthusiasm will hopefully rub off on the lads and we’ll be going into Saturday full of confidence.”
The 34-year-old admitted that an element of pressure was inevitable given the club’s current position in the table and the magnitude of the game this weekend, but feels that Moniz will have the players in the right mindset.
“Obviously with the position that we’re in it’s understandable that the lads will probably tighten up a bit when they go out on to the pitch, but he’s trying to take that pressure off us and just go and enjoy football, which is what every footballer tries to do,” he continued.
“It’s a job that everybody loves and he’s just trying to get us back to that, take away that fear factor. At the end of the day, when you step back, we’re all good footballers, we can all do it and it’s just a case of probably just getting back to that and he certainly instilled that in just one training session yesterday.”
Subscribers can watch the full pre-match interview with Garry Thompson on Magpie Player.